First of the Last
by Macx
Summary: movie fic, Imperfection 'verse. Arcee decides to come out of hiding to join the Autobots and she's in for quite a shock and many changes...


TITLE: First of the Last  
SERIES: Imperfection Deviation  
AUTHOR: Macx  
RATING: PG-13  
DISCLAIMER: None of the characters belong to me, sadly. They are owned by people with a lot more money :)  
Author's Voice of Warning (aka Author's Note):  
English is not my first language; it's German. This is the best I can do. Any mistakes you find in here, collect them and you might win a prize The spell-checker said everything's okay, but you know how trustworthy those thingies are...  
FEEDBACK: Loved  
BETA: okamimyrrhibis  
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Okay... this is my first venture into introducing a canon character into the movie-verse that wasn't in the movie. Since this is the movie and not G1, I wanted to find an explanation and a background for the character that fits in with the movie version of it all. Some might scream bloody murder at me... though I hope not too much :)

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The last time she had seen her people had been at Tyger Pax. Fighting alongside her team to protect the Allspark.

Then everything had gone to hell. They had lost many of their team; their leader, among many others, had been captured, and she had survived Decepticon interrogation by sheer luck and chance. She had made it out alive, badly damaged, and alone.

The Allspark had been lost, too. Launched into space to keep it out of Megatron's hands. The Decepticons had left after a short while, and so had the last surviving Autobots.

She had been forgotten.

Actually, she had been off-line, tending to her wounds, and when she had powered up again, she had been alone.

Arcee looked about the strange new world she had landed on over a planetary year ago. It was where she had been led to by Optimus Prime's signal, and she had discovered signs of other mechs, but she had been hesitant, almost wary, of meeting them. Traveling alone through a hostile environment like space, depending only on her own skills and knowledge, she had learned to keep herself hidden first.

Actually, as a troubleshooter, she had always depended on her skills, but she had had a team. Mechs like her had been designed with a specific purpose. She was smaller than most, both in height and in body mass. Troubleshooters went where there were problems on Cybertron, mostly mechanical problems. She was, to use a human term, an engineer, and she had been assigned to the Allspark chamber. Size was important in her job. Small size. Litheness. Her protoform shell didn't need to generate armor, so her weight wasn't really in proportion to her size. What the others needed for protection, she kept as body mass in a deceptively slender frame that was hard to actually destroy.

When the war had broken out, Arcee had been torn at first. She had wanted to stay neutral, but had soon found that Megatron's troops annihilated the neutrals just as quickly as the Autobots. So she had joined Optimus Prime's cause. Up until then she had never met the imposing mech.

Ironhide had taught her to compensate for her smaller size with speed and aggressive maneuvers, making her one of the most dangerous Autobots around. He had called her a born hunter. If she had been constructed differently, she might have made it as a shock-trooper. Troubleshooters were adept at thinking on their feet, analyzing a problem and coming up with several solutions, sometimes almost easy ones. Their processors had been wired differently, she knew. What came naturally to her seemed complicated to another mech.

Other troubleshooters had joined them throughout the first stages of the war. All like her, all honing their skills with Ironhide's help. They became a small, almost elite force under the leadership of Elita-One. Arcee had always admired her. While no troubleshooter, she had all the agility and speed of one. Elita had been a natural leader, encompassing many abilities, and she kept the usually solo- working troubleshooters together as a cohesive team. Her background had been intelligence work and it had served them well in the war.

Ironhide had trained them to use their speed to their advantage in battle, striking suddenly and swiftly and then vanishing away again as fast as they had appeared. The Decepticons hunted them, but they never caught one. Chromia had always jokingly referred to them as the Autobots' shock-troopers. Arcee knew they had been feared and powerful. In a way she had thought of herself as a shock-trooper, and still did.

There had been over fifty of them at the height of the war. Arcee didn't know how many had actually survived. She had lost contact with the last of them after Tyger Pax. Chromia, Moonracer, Firestar, Clipper and Beta had been those she had known best. Tyger Pax had been their assignment. By then too many had already been scattered throughout the galaxy and Optimus had requested Arcee's team to meet with Bumblebee's to hold off the Decepticons. Arcee had been the only one to make it. She had no idea where the others had been, if the Decepticons had killed or captured them.

Maybe one day she would know.

Arcee transformed and enabled her holographic projection. When she had chosen her vehicle mode for Earth, she had chosen logically according to size and matter required. It had tuned out to be a motorbike, which was also more useful than the beach vehicles she had come in contact with, too. Those were too limited. But to blend in, she needed a driver. So she had created a helmeted figure that had no features should the helmet ever be removed. She only needed it when she was out in the open.

Like right now.

On Tyger Pax, she had needed armor. It had made her more bulky and it had protected her from serious damage. On Earth she had chosen to keep herself lightly armored, but with the option to change that if necessary. So far, there had been no necessity.

It had taken her this long to gather all the information needed to finally step out into the open. It had been tough the first few planetary months. She had crashed in the middle of nowhere, with no vehicle form for her to scan. The plant and animal life around her had been surprising. She had never been on a world with such an abundance of organic creatures.

There had been moments of near-discovery. She had detected mech life forms once or twice, but she had kept back. It was what she had learned: hide, scan, make a decision. Troubleshooters weren't the most impulsive of mechs. They needed a calm processor, a steady logic, and they needed to be able to think fast but never underestimate the situation. Her kind made the best of any given situation, no matter what the odds, and her processor always balanced all odds against each other, bringing her out on top. Even under pressure and at top speed she could decide which course of action to take.

So she had waited.

And they were gone after a while.

Arcee had followed. Across borders that she crossed in secrecy, to a continent called North America and a nation called USA. The first signal had come from here, the call of Optimus Prime to his surviving Autobots.

She was a survivor.

And she had finally come.

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It had been seven years since the battle at Mission City, the destruction of the Allspark, and Optimus Prime's call to his Autobots to come join them on Earth. It was a short time for a mech. He hadn't expected any soldier to appear right after the call, mainly because his people had been spread out all over the known, and maybe even the unknown, universe. It would take time for the call to reach them and for them to make their way here – if they ever would.

The arrival of Arcee had been met with joy. It meant others had survived.

Ironhide nodded at the so much smaller mech. "Good to see you, kid," he rumbled.

"Good to know others survived," she answered.

"We always hope for more."

"You were the one who crashed in South America two planetary years ago?" Optimus addressed her.

"Yes."

"Why didn't you answer our communication attempts?"

Arcee looked at the imposingly tall mech, feeling her awe and respect return for the Autobot leader. He looked more war-weary than she could remember, but his optics still held that intense spark, the expression that had drawn so many into following him despite the ruthlessness of Megatron.

"I needed time to adjust, Optimus Prime," she told him. "And I couldn't be sure this wasn't a trap. I encountered too many in the war and after Tyger Pax."

He nodded. "We were searching for you."

"I registered the signals, but I couldn't risk revealing myself."

Because she had played all odds against each other and the danger had been too great. This was a new world, with intelligent life, with a civilization she had to hide from. She had registered the calling codes of Jazz and Ironhide, but she hadn't dared to believe.

"I understand," Optimus said, the deep voice reassuring her that the Autobot leader took no offense at her decision. Actually, it sounded like he lauded her. "This planet is our refuge. Our presence here is known only to a few humans. We hide from the humans as long as they have no need to know about us."

"I gathered as much. I never revealed myself to them."

But there had been close calls. A boy named Raoul in Mexico had nearly made her as more than a simple machine when he had tried to steal her. It was the first time she had used the hologram for more than simulating a driver on the bike.

"Good." Prime nodded. "You will need to learn a few things. Our integration is vital to our survival and the secrecy surrounding our presence here. But first I want Ratchet to check your systems. I believe it was some time ago you were able to recharge properly."

Arcee almost laughed. "It feels like eons."

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Ratchet had found multiple systems in need of a good, long recharge, as well as readjustment, fine-tuning, and one that needed a complete replacement. Arcee was only too happy to be able to recharge safely.

Humans were a race she had to get used to. They were far different from anything she had encountered before and they were individuals to a point where she couldn't judge a human from the outside. This one helping Ratchet for instance showed gravely different abilities than the other humans she had met. The way he used the technology available to him and checked her was -- fascinating, for a lack of a better word. To Arcee it seemed that he was only briefly looking at something concerning her body and he knew the rest. Somehow...

Ratchet had introduced him as Sam Witwicky. No further explanation had been given and while Sam seemed special, he was treated no different. It was only through Optimus Prime that she found out that this was the human who had killed Megatron by using the Allspark.

"How could he trigger it?" she asked Prime.

"We don't know," was the unsatisfactory reply. "It happened and it changed him. His genetic makeup was completely altered and Sam now has the ability of technopathy. He can't influence machines, but he has an immediate understanding of how they work. He can also uplink to us, like we can do among ourselves, to communicate."

"How? Organic life was never influenced by the Allspark!" Arcee argued.

"Organic life never came into much contact with it," Optimus replied. "The occasional spore doesn't really count."

"But…"

"It happened. We never understood the Allspark enough to know how it worked. Sam somehow triggered it and destroyed Megatron's spark and in turn was left with a gift."

"And now the last remaining Allspark shard is inside another human?" Arcee wanted to know.

"Yes. That was an accident…"

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Meeting Will Lennox face-to-face came as a shock. Lennox's display of Allspark runes had Arcee whisper Primus' name and stare. The sight of the cosmic code filled her with mixed emotions, to know that the human had absorbed the last remaining piece of the Allspark. Part of her knew enough about humans by now to understand that Lennox's survival was a miracle. Another part screamed at why a human, why not a mech like them.

Lennox was a nice enough person and he was rather open about his appearance. When he touched Arcee – shaking her hand – her name appeared on his bare forearm.

"It always does that," he explained with a shrug.

She watched ancient and cosmic runes flitter over his tanned skin, then her optics stopped at the unmoving string of writing that spelled Ironhide's name. Arcee didn't ask, but she had suspicions.

"It's everywhere?" the troubleshooter asked openly.

Lennox drew the finger of one hand over of the other arm and Arcee watched the lines that formed on his skin, as they created squares and rectangles, circles and more; like taking a computer board schematic and transferring it onto his skin. When he pushed against his skin it seemed to break, flow apart, disappear, then reform somewhere else.

"Yes," the human answered softly. "Everywhere. Some change, some are always the same. Some days I'm completely free of them, aside from the permanent ones. Other days I look like the Allspark surface." He shrugged.

Arcee reached out and gently touched the swirling tattoos, awed. "Do you… feel it?"

"No more than what your touch is like to my skin."

"Amazing."

The brown eyes narrowed a little. "Don't go all worshippy, okay? I'm not the Allspark. I banged it into their heads already, so don't start."

Arcee drew back and smiled suddenly. "No, you're not. I wouldn't offend you by saying you are."

"Good. Took me long enough with Ratchet."

Arcee laughed softly. "I bet."

In a way it broke the ice. At least for Arcee. She still felt it was surreal for an organic to be the carrier of the Allspark shard, even if it no longer existed as such. It had absorbed… either into the human body or the human body itself. Lennox didn't give off Allspark radiation. He was human – to a degree.

She decided to get to know him better. Lennox was an interesting personality, and he had been a vital part in the Mission City battle, helping to fend off the Decepticon attack and destroying Megatron.

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Arcee was also introduced to other changes in the ranks, as well as allegiances.

"A Decepticon?!" she spat when Optimus revealed that particular fact.

"Barricade has allied himself with us," the Autobot leader said calmly.

"You can't trust a Con! He'll betray us, kill us the first chance he has!"

Too many had fallen for that trick. One death was one too many! And the Decepticons deceived well. They played others, used them, abused them. Arcee had seen seasoned warriors die screaming in interrogation. She had made it out alive, but so few had.

"He has had that chance for the past seven years, Arcee. And there are special circumstances."

She laughed bitterly. "A Con is a Con, Optimus. There will never be special circumstances!"

Those ancient blue optics glowed softly. "I have seen as much suffering and pain as you have, Arcee," he told her, voice so calm and even, it was almost hypnotic. "I have seen friends die, have grieved and gone on in the hope of peace. The peace never came and Megatron destroyed our homeworld. But individuals cannot be judged by what has happened."

"He's a shock-trooper. You said so yourself. He has broken more than one of us! He walked over dead shells!"

"Yes."

"How can you trust a Decepticon, Optimus? He has killed our troops!"

He nodded. "I'm very much aware of it."

Arcee felt her emotions flare with her anger. "Was he on Tyger Pax? Was he one who killed our troops? Who captured Bumblebee and delivered him to Megatron?"

"Possibly."

"Then why?!"

"Because of Jazz."

She drew back. "What? What's Jazz got to do with it?"

"Everything, Arcee. Barricade is spark-bonded to Jazz."

Arcee's optics flared and she stared speechlessly at her leader. Her processors whirred frantically at the words.

No… no, no, no! Impossible!

"No…" she finally whispered.

Jazz and some lowlife Deceptiscum…

"He has been ever since the beginning of the war."

Since… the beginning…?

Prime wasn't joking. He rarely did. His voice was so calm, so final, so damned knowing!

No way! Cybertron's Pits, no!

For a spark-bonded pair to fight on opposite sides…! The Decepticon could have used Jazz to betray the Autobots. He could have abused his partner's trust, but… he hadn't? Then again, why hadn't Jazz used him in turn? Double agents? No, Prime would never have kept Jazz as his First Lieutenant had he been a double agent.

Could Jazz have used his partner as a spy? Or vice versa?

No, impossible. Because there was no abuse, a small voice whispered what she had been told by mechs far more ancient than her a long time ago. Stories of spark-bonds had always been told to the younger generation. Finding someone who was… like you.

A Decepticon…

"He's here?" she asked tonelessly.

Optimus shook his head. "Not at the moment. Barricade has taken to patrolling certain cities in the area. How long he stays away is his own choice. With your arrival, it might be a while until you run into him."

Arcee felt numb. A Decepticon had allied himself with them? And he was spark-bonded to Prime's second? It was outrageous, but she knew about those bonds, like all of them did, and it couldn't be faked. It was for real.

"Arcee, I don't want any incident involving Barricade and you at each other's throat," Optimus warned her. "There is no room for revenge or retaliation."

"You trust him," she repeated.

"I do. He has kept the trust of Jazz for millennia. I cannot but trust him in turn."

"What if he betrays you to the next bunch of Decepticons to find this world?"

There was a knowing flare in Prime's eyes. "He won't," the taller Autobot simply said.

And that was it. Arcee understood that Prime believed what he had said.

Time would tell if the trust was well-placed.

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Meeting her old team leader again filled Arcee with joy. Bumblebee had regained his voice and he seemed none the worse. She still remembered those horrible moments when Megatron had questioned him, when he had ripped out Bumblebee's voice box.

They spent hours catching up on their respective lives and through him she got a second point of view on the occurrences ever since Tyger Pax. Bumblebee shared his memories openly and gave her a better understanding of humans. He had been the one who had been on Earth the longest. He loved the planet, just like Jazz did, though Jazz's love of alien cultures was tenfold greater than Bumblebee's. She heard of the search for the Allspark, of battling the Decepticons, of meeting the humans for the very first time.

Arcee learned about the first contact, about the tentative trust between the two races, and about the humans' sacrifice to save their world and the Autobots. It had been the first time the Autobots had encountered such a race, so different and yet so much the same in their morals and honor.

"What about Barricade?" she finally asked.

"He's an ally," Bumblebee simply answered.

"But he… he's a shock-trooper, one of Megatron's elite, and he tried to kill Sam, right?"

"Sam trusts him," Bumblebee said. "He knows him a lot better than any of us ever could. I never asked what he saw in Barricade's mind, but for Sam to train with him… he trusts. And Barricade has protected him since the end of the battle."

"For his own purposes!"

"I doubt it."

"Or because he wants you to trust him?"

Bumblebee shook his head. "Arcee, a lot has changed. I didn't understand his reasons until I knew about his connection to Jazz. He isn't proving anything. He's himself. His allegiance to Megatron ended when Megatron killed Jazz."

Arcee mulled that over. She still couldn't just trust a Decepticon. The war had taken too many from her.

"Talk to Jazz," Bumblebee told her. "Just give this a chance. Things have changed. We have changed, too."

She was silent, then nodded once. Arcee had seen that. It was too new for her and she had been alone too long. Things were currently crashing down on top of her and she was trying to deal with it all. A Decepticon was the last thing she had expected to find working with Optimus Prime and his team.

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Over the next few days Arcee studied the dynamics at the base, human and Cybertronian interaction, and she openly asked Ironhide about his connection to Lennox. The answer was as shocking as the spark-bond, followed by the revelation about Sam and Bumblebee.

Things had changed, she realized. They had had to adapt. Not that finding a partner was adaptation, but it showed Arcee how much the others trusted the humans.

The humans in turn regarded her with curiosity. The human soldiers accepted her as just another mech. One called Trent DeMarco had introduced himself as the base's logistician, which meant he was in charge of what got in and out supply-wise, as well as personnel and requirements of them. He asked her about her requirements and told her that should she need something, she could talk to him. It was a strange offer, since Arcee wasn't used to referring to humans, but she filed it away.

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"May I ask you a question?" Trent addressed her when they met two days later after the latest delivery run.

She had been curious to see the base operations, their supply mechanism and coordination, and when everything had been stored away, Trent had come over to her.

Arcee tilted her head. Her size made it easy for her to walk among the humans. She was about half a human body size taller than DeMarco, which made her about half of Bumblebee's height. She had drawn many curious looks, mostly because she was the new mech among the Autobots, and because she was smaller.

"Of course," she answered.

"Mechs have no genders, right? I mean, there are no gender-specific differences. There's not males and females or neuters."

"No. We don't need to reproduce like you do," she told him. "We don't need genders like some organics have."

"So why do you refer to yourself as female?"

Arcee almost laughed. Instead she smiled and settled down on a crate. "Because your language doesn't allow for a correct translation. Your have three gender-specific pronouns. She, He and It. Your people have a way of attaching genders to things, trying to give them a personality or a relation to something they can understand. You call sea vessels 'she' and you attach an 'it' to your car, but your pets have personal pronouns, even though they are not persons."

"To some they are." Trent shrugged. "So your gender-specific pronoun can't be translated, and you use 'she'?"

"Explaining our culture in terms of genders leaves the wrong impression," she explained. "We don't have genders. Our verbal expressions are limited by your language in some areas. There are only three choices and 'it' neuters the noun involved."

"You have a different pronoun for yourself compared to others?"

"Yes."

"According to function?" DeMarco guessed.

Arcee mulled that over. "In a way. I was created as a troubleshooter, to go into problematic areas where larger mechs wouldn't fit. I'm still one, just with different troubles to shoot."

"Like Decepticons?" DeMarco guessed, smiling.

"You got it. Troubleshooters were a sub-group, to say it in your language. There were many of us, and we all had the same pronouns. We were all built the same way."

"Would all of you be female on my planet?"

"We would all use the 'she' pronoun," Arcee corrected him gently.

Trent smiled. "Gotcha. So Prime and Jazz and the others have different pronouns, too?"

"Not all of them. Jazz, Bumblebee and Ironhide share one pronoun. Ratchet and Prime each have a different one."

"How do you know which one to use?"

"We know."

Trent chuckled. "Not helpful."

"Are you planning to learn our language?"

"No. Just interested. I work with you guys. I want to at least understand a little about you."

She smiled. "Commendable."

"Unlike you, I can't just download the stuff I'm interested in. We humans ask and learn. Our brains don't simply store stuff."

"Which is not a bad thing."

"It's slower," Trent argued. "And our brains don't store all of it. We keep forgetting what we don't use regularly."

Arcee regarded him calmly. "Like I said, not a bad thing. If you remembered everything, you would have trouble functioning. Cybertronians store information that isn't required in places that don't get accessed all too often. I haven't been able to work as an engineer for a very long time. I would have to access that information just like you would have to remember something out of your far past."

"You'd still remember, though. It's not lost."

"Some of us erased memories either because they needed the storage space or because they couldn't deal with them," she said softly. "I had a co-worker… her name was Moonracer. She erased a lot of her past. She said she didn't want to remember some of the things. It made her sad. She kept faint memories, an emotion maybe, but she no longer had the knowledge."

Trent nodded, reflecting sadness. "Humans can erase memories, too, in a way. We push them away, refuse to remember, because of certain trauma or bad experience. Some can regain those memories, some never will."

"Our species isn't that much different in that regard," Arcee told him. "Cybertronians might live longer, but we have all the more memories to deal with."

"Have you ever erased some of yours?"

She chuckled. "I have been tempted. With all the suffering and pain of the war, though, I clung to my past. I wanted to remember what was before. Moonracer couldn't process it, so she left her past behind and became only the warrior. I don't want that."

"Yeah. I had my troubles in my past, but I wouldn't want to forget either. The past shaped us."

She nodded, looking at the human. He was so much younger than her, young for his own species, too, but they all had more memories than a mech of their age would have. Humans lived so much more intensely, so emotionally, embracing life.

Because life was short.

Even for a mech. She had learned that, too. She had seen friends perish or disappear, friends she had taken for granted. Ever since then Arcee had embraced her life.

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John Keller, Secretary of Defense, one of the four most powerful men in the United States, had served in his office longer than any of his predecessors. SecDefs came and went even while the same President was still in office. Sometimes they had to go because of political difficulties; sometimes because of personal matters; sometimes because or a mixture of both. His predecessor had been stepping on a lot of political toes and Keller had seized the opportunity back then.

Maybe his long term had something to do with his involvement in the Mission City incident. Maybe because Optimus Prime referred to him, trusted him. Maybe because he was just competent and trustworthy. Whatever it had been, he had seized that opportunity as well and made the best of it.

With the election of the new President a few months ago, a new SecDef had been appointed, too. Not that Keller had really looked forward to another year. Too much was going on elsewhere and he knew he was a valuable asset wherever he went.

So the new President was sworn into office, he was given the briefing on the political going-ons, had been told all the secrets kept from everyone but the select, and then he had been introduced to the existence of alien life on planet Earth.

The meeting with Optimus Prime had gone well, Keller mused with a smile. His successor hadn't fainted, neither had the President, and they had even been able to make it through the courteous first meet-and-greet without being rendered speechless. Keller knew that a shock like that had to be digested, but it was vital that the new President knew what was going on. Sector Seven's past and the long involvement into alien life among them, the existence of the Ice Man, the Allspark, the secret facilities, the reverse-engineered technology, the Ghost-1 mission… and the Mission City battle, the involvement of the Witwicky family… It was all something that needed time to be understood. This wasn't remotely like the run-of-the-mill political crisis. This was juggling the façade of 'everything's well and good' with the looming possibility of openly known alien presence in the near future.

No, Keller didn't envy the new SecDef his cover work. Neither had he ever wanted to go for President.

Keller was now a liaison to Project, to the Autobots, and served as an advisor for Banachek and even Prime. It still took him away from family and friends, but he knew how important it was. His wife had to be the most patient woman in the universe, he thought. His children had grown up, lived their own lives. His daughter had gone into politics, his son was a successful business man in New York.

The arrival of the first Autobot on Earth after seven years had surprised Keller. He hadn't really believed he would meet a new Autobot in his lifetime. He wasn't very knowledgeable in astronomy or physics, but after the first contact he had read up a little, especially Sector Seven files, and he knew that space travel took time. Optimus Prime had confirmed that they had needed forty years to get here. So a new arrival might take just as long.

He hadn't.

Arcee was not what he had expected and he was surprised to learn about her, though the female attributes stopped with the female address. Prime explained to him later that it was a translation problem concerning gender pronouns and Keller just filed that information away. He couldn't really imagine robots having sex or anything like it anyway.

"You think she's the first of many?" he asked Optimus as they met at the base.

Things were moderately busy he noted, nodding at one of the Lieutenants passing him by. The man saluted, despite the fact that Keller was no longer his superior. Old habits died hard.

The massive Autobot tilted his head in thought. "For my people, I hope there are more. I know you fear the impact of more arriving on your society. With each new arrival the chance of discovery rises."

"And the chance that a Decepticon follows one here."

"Yes. Which is why the Ghost mission is so important."

"You think your ship will be able to function as a first line of defense?"

"The _Ark_ will at least slow the Decepticons down, maybe even lure them away."

Keller was doubtful of that. Megatron was dead and Starscream had fled – and the Autobots didn't think he would return in revenge. But even a few Decepticons without plans for revenge, someone just out to off a few Autobots, could kill too many humans. One human death was one too many.

"The technology aboard could help us determine their arrival a lot earlier than yours can," Prime went on. "We have to wait and see what shape she is in, what we can salvage or remodel. I never wanted to endanger your world, John," Optimus said softly, seriously. "I will do whatever is necessary to protect it."

Keller believed him. He had known Optimus for seven years now; he had seen the compassion and the guilt and the pain.

"You didn't dump the Allspark on us. You also didn't push Megatron through the ice," the former SecDef said. "It happened. We're dealing with it. One more good guy fighting for us is welcome. Should more arrive, we can still make room. As long as your people play along with the hide and seek, we can work something out."

Prime nodded his thanks. "Camouflage is part of our lives, John."

"I noticed. You're damn good at it."

That got him a chuckle.

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Keller left the base around midnight. He had declined the offer to stay over night. A helicopter picked him up and flew him to Nellis, where he would stay for a few days to brief those who needed to know about Arcee. After that it was back to Washington. His wife's birthday was at the end of the week and he wanted to spend it with her.

He had had time to meet with Lennox and he was as always amazed at seeing the man, watching the runes while knowing what had caused it. They had had a pleasant talk over coffee, then Keller had needed to leave.

He would be back.

It was his job.

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Arcee had never met Barricade in person before now. She didn't know him, had never fought him, but she had fought his kind. Decepticons. And shock-troopers. They weren't so much better than the troubleshooters, but she had never underestimated them. They were cunning, fast, ruthless and powerful. She had been like that, too, but she had never fought for Megatron's cause.

Looking at the black and white mech, she tried to ignore his Decepticon symbol, but it was hard. He was an ally. Their ally. He hadn't killed any of them. He protected humans. He had protected and trained Sam Witwicky. The young engineer trusted him with his life, and maybe even more, and he had told Arcee a few things.

She had been surprised to learn that Sam was a technopath, was able to read her emotions if he wanted to, even uplink to her. He hadn't tried and Bumblebee had explained how Sam respected their privacy. Talking to her former team leader she had found out more about Sam than she would have on her own, as well as about other specifics concerning humans and mechs.

And Barricade.

Arcee watched Jazz interact with Barricade as they stood outside the base. It was an ease she had always envied the specialist for. Despite all the cruelty of the war, he had kept the ease and happy-go-lucky attitude. Arcee wasn't foolish enough to believe Jazz was like that all the time. There was more to him, as with all of them, and it was just the surface. Still, he was that mech. He wasn't gloomy or brooding or stupidly naïve and reckless. He had a good balance between the seasoned warrior and the easily accessible mech. You didn't make First Lieutenant to Prime by just being cool.

Barricade was a rather cold mech in turn. There was barely any emotion Arcee could read and the only time they had met face to face he had just regarded her steadily, without a word, those red optics even. He hadn't said a word and simply left after the introductions.

He wasn't attached at the hip to Jazz, though they did hang out a lot. When Barricade wasn't at the base, it didn't mean Jazz simply followed him. They lived separate lives, but they were closely entwined. Arcee had never seen a spark-bonded pair before, but she had heard of the possibility.

She was fascinated and appalled by Jazz and Barricade being in one. Fascinated because it was such a rare and wonderful concept. Appalled because of who Jazz's spark-bonded had turned out to be. It wasn't for her to question the wisdom of it. If she had found her spark-bonded was a Decepticon, she didn't know how she would have reacted.

But she had to accept the status quo. At least until Barricade showed his true colors. Arcee was convinced he was only biding his time. She had fought too many Decepticons not to believe it. What threw her a little off course was Ironhide's, while reluctant, acceptance. He was glowering now and then and he was glaring at Barricade's here or there, but there was no outright challenge.

"He's okay for a Con," Ironhide told his former student. "As long as he doesn't pull a fast one."

"But you don't trust him."

"Never trust a Deceptiscum."

"Why do you let him stay at the base, then?"

Blue optics in a dark face looked at her. "'Cause he's an ally."

Arcee almost laughed. "He's a Decepticon, Ironhide!"

Ironhide vented some air in a mech version of a sigh. "To quote a human: it's complicated. It's been seven years, kid. We had our ups and downs here. But he's proven himself. And he's bound to Jazz. Hard as that is to accept. Sam knows him inside and out, so to speak. I know the boy won't say a word about what he saw inside that warped processor during his training, but something happened between them. Never seen a Con so protective of a human, even before the technopathy stuff." Ironhide flexed his hand. "Yeah, it's complicated."

"Like a lot is," Arcee murmured.

He laughed. "You'll get used to it."

"I'm not used to a Decepticon among my people. How should I get used to other changes that are so beyond what we are?" she challenged.

Ironhide frowned a little. "Like what?"

"Lennox. The Allspark inside him."

"It's not the Allspark, Arcee. He was impaled by the last remaining shard and it was absorbed into him. He survived, though he should have died from it. Humans can't repair such immense damage. There was no wound, though. It closed as the shard disappeared inside him and then he started to change over time."

"So he is the Allspark."

"No. He has none of its powers. He just displays the runes."

"And you share with him," she almost accused.

Now he chuckled. "You were always straight-forward with some things," the weapons specialist replied. "Yes, we share. Yes, we are partners. And like with all partnerships, it's between the two parties involved." The last was said with a clear warning.

Arcee heeded it. She just shook her head, unable to see what Ironhide could get from sharing with another life form. But so was Bumblebee and she had yet to ask her former team leader what it was that bound him to a human life form. How could a human even share with a spark?

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It was Ironhide's idea for his partner to learn a few techniques when it came to speed and agility fights from Arcee. She had at first thought it to be a joke since humans could never compete with Cybertronians, but Arcee was dealt another shock when Lennox changed shape from human into what looked like a protoform.

"Only looks like it," Will told her with a shrug. "I'm still myself underneath." At her quizzical look he added, "Wounds transfer back to a human injury."

He sounded like it had happened already. Arcee looked at the protoform. Lennox was about Jazz's size, maybe a bit taller, which made him a lot taller than her. Then she looked at Ironhide.

"You think it's a good idea?"

He smirked. "Just don't hurt him too badly."

Lennox shot his partner a look. "Ironhide!"

"Hey, she's good. You can learn a lot from her."

"By beating me up?"

Arcee chuckled. "Let's say you show me what you've got already, then we work on perfecting it."

He groaned. "I know that translates into bruises."

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It did.

But Lennox had a commendable technique and she knew Ironhide had already shaped him. Arcee noted a different fighting style, though, which spoke of his human heritage.

She could work with that.

She could teach him.

It would be fun.

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Barricade had met only two troubleshooters in his existence. One was before the war. She had been a formidable technician, one of those maintaining the energon conversion plant at South Side. He didn't remember her name. The other had nearly gotten the better of him throughout the war. They had played a game of hunter and prey, roles always changing, and she had challenged his abilities and tested his limits. In the end she had escaped, but not without leaving him with a few reminders never to underestimate the troubleshooters. They were the Autobot equivalents of shock-troopers.

Arcee's arrival had sparked mild curiosity in him. So someone had heard Prime's call. That meant Decepticons might intercept and unscramble the call one day, too. That in turn meant that even if Megatron was dead, some blinded-by-loyalty idiot might try to take out the Autobots on Earth, believing in his eternal glory at off-lining Prime. Barricade almost laughed. Optimus was a formidable opponent and he knew he would stand little chance in a fair fight and a mediocre one with a sneak attack himself. But a fool was born every day. Some Decepticons simply overestimated their strength.

Barricade didn't voice his thoughts, but he knew his partner picked up on them anyway. It was eerie how their bond had developed in leaps. Things were smoothing out, were mending and healing, and it felt incredible. By now they finally had what should have been millennia ago. It was invigorating and freeing. His spark had never felt so alive.

"The humans aren't prepared for another attack," Barricade finally said as they stood outside the base, at the far end of the airfield. "Their weapons aren't enough."

"They have help."

"Five Autobots?"

Jazz smiled. "And you. And Arcee now. Not to mention two units who have been trained to fight Decepticons."

"None of that will stop an armada."

"Who says it'll be an armada?"

Barricade gave him a cold look. "Even ten Decepticons would wreak havoc upon this planet."

"Which is where the _Ark_ comes in. We might get her up and running as a primary defense unit."

Barricade was silent. He was worried, now that the first mech had arrived on Earth after the defeat of Megatron. Earth might not be his home planet and it might not really welcome them, but he would defend it. He had too much to lose.

"Cade?" Jazz's voice was softer now, understanding… knowing. He cursed the Autobot for it.

"I'm due for patrol," he rumbled and stepped away from his counterpart.

"Want some company?" was the easy offer.

He met the blue optics, then simply transformed without a word. Jazz did the same, following him naturally. The moment they were on the highway, he overtook the police cruiser and assumed lead, heading toward Tranquility. Barricade followed without really thinking about it.

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Ironhide's remark about Arcee being good luck because she kept Barricade from the base didn't go down well. It had been three months now since her arrival and Barricade's already scarce presence had dwindled even more. Jazz remained away with him most of the time, though he also did his duty as second-in command somehow. When he was at the base, he was his professional self. It was as if Barricade's behavior wasn't because of Arcee.

But it was.

For some reason, the Con evaded her.

Will had given him the evil eye and a violent jab throughout training that had rattled Ironhide's system.

"He's our ally!" his partner had simply snapped. "Get it into your thick head!"

But a Decepticon would always remain a Decepticon, no matter who he was spark-bonded to. So what if the Con in question had been on his best behavior? So what if Sam trusted him because he had looked into that dark mind?

Ironhide grumbled to himself, unwillingly recalling the many occasions Barricade had surprised him in a positive way. But still, something was missing. Something that had kept him on his toes, to use a human figure of speech.

The base had become quieter… more boring.

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Arcee herself was fed up with being ignored and when Barricade came to the base the next time he found himself looking at one pissed-off troubleshooter.

"Don't tell me you're afraid of me!" Arcee snapped at him.

"Hardly."

"But you evade me."

"You have a vivid imagination. Autobots tend to have one."

Arcee felt her temper flare briefly, then she laughed. "You should know."

Barricade's smirk was downright evil. "Probably."

"So you aren't evading me, huh?"

"Why should I?"

"That's the question I've been asking myself," Arcee told him, looking at the taller mech. "Because you wouldn't be afraid of a troubleshooter, right? And I don't think of you as being just courteous."

It got her a snort. The red optics pinned her like a bug and she knew she was facing herself. This was the Decepticon equivalent of her position among the Autobots. Shock-troopers had been the elite guard of Megatron when he had been the Lord High Protector of Cybertron. They had become hunters, assassins… troubleshooters.

"So," Arcee said slowly, "if this isn't some glitch or Jazz's influence on you – and I doubt Ironhide can scare you away either – what's going through that cracked processor of yours?"

"That you should shut up," Barricade rumbled and turned, walking away.

Arcee wasn't easily shaken off. She followed, on her toes, careful not to follow too closely should Barricade's behavior change.

"You don't want to get on Prime's bad side, is that it?" she called.

Barricade stopped abruptly and the optics were a deep red. "Optimus Prime is not my leader," he told her darkly. "I don't care what he thinks of me or my actions."

"But you're Jazz's partner. Your presence here, your actions, reflect back on him."

He laughed coldly. "They have ever since we bonded."

"So my presence has nothing to do with your change of behavior?"

"I haven't changed," he stated flatly and continued walking.

But you have, Arcee thought. She had read up on the files Ironhide kept on their ally. She knew what he had done, who he was, what he could do, and she had read how dangerous he really was.

She didn't follow him this time, strangely intrigued by his behavior, his answers, and his bearing.

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Barricade was at the base more often after that small confrontation. According to Trent, who Arcee had found to be a pleasant human to talk to and to ask questions about human things. It was back to the normal routine. The former Decepticon never spent much time here, but he at least recharged when Jazz kicked him into doing so and he let Ratchet check his systems – after threats from Jazz.

Back to normalcy.

Arcee kept an optic on her Decepticon counterpart.

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Arcee loved speed. She was fast, agile, able to wind through the narrowest gaps between buildings, an ability that had insured her survival many times. She couldn't keep up with Jazz, but who could? The mech was too damned fast even for a troubleshooter. Without her team to enjoy a good ride, hunt a turbofox or two, she had tried out her wheels on her own before. But it was little to no fun.

It was because of Bumblebee's remark that some humans enjoyed fast rides that she even got the idea to invite Trent. The soldier had been surprised, maybe even a bit wary, but she had gained enough of his trust for him to decide it was okay.

So on a Sunday afternoon DeMarco donned a bright green helmet and protective gear colored in the same bright green and dark blues – matching Arcee's chosen paint job -- got onto a flashy motorbike, and took off. Arcee knew how fragile humans were and she kept an optic on her passenger, but DeMarco had been on motorbikes before. He had told her he had driven one until he had come here to the base. He adjusted easily to her and she felt the old joy rise inside her at the ability to share this thrill with someone.

DeMarco whooped as they accelerated faster and faster, laughing with the same freedom Arcee felt.

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fin for this story!


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